Clark County Education Association responds to governor’s address

We applaud Governor Lombardo’s historic investment in our Pupil Centered Funding Plan, which provides for our base per pupil funding levels as well as the additional weight values for some of our most at-risk students. This kind of investment is unprecedented and has been a long time coming. The current success of the Pupil Centered Funding Plan is the result of years of legislative efforts first started in 2019 and finalized in 2021. Long-term solutions take long-term efforts. We understand that, and — with this investment — high standards of accountability must be in place. School districts, as well as frontline principals and educators, must ensure our students are learning.

We also support the Governor’s position in making our schools, our campuses, and our buses safe for our educators and students by passing new legislation that addresses school safety. The Governor also stressed the need to support our efforts to build a Nevada educator pipeline. Our teacher vacancies are at a crisis level, and thousands of classrooms are left without a full-time teacher. If we do not have educators in the classroom, students will not learn.

To that end, we also applaud Speaker Yeager and Majority Leader Cannizzaro in their efforts to pass legislation addressing the pipeline issue and regarding teacher recruitment and retention. These efforts will ensure we finally have a teacher in every classroom, and these new policies brought forward by the legislature are critical to making sure increased education funding results in better outcomes. That’s why we are already working with key legislators to move them forward.

CCEA believes we have an opportunity to make this legislative session one of accomplishment. As always, it will require the Governor working with legislative leadership to succeed. We have confidence this will happen, and we will work tirelessly to support such efforts.